Recently, I attended a special film screening of "The Artist is Present". It surveys Marina Abravomic's artistic endeavors and focuses on one of her biggest shows at MoMA. Abravomic is a performance artist in which her body becomes her canvas in a sense. Her early art is shocking because she plays with bodily harm to herself - nothing is an act or an illusion. She had a piece where she was laying in the middle of a pentagram lit on fire and passed out from the fumes. She even carved one onto her abdomen in another performance. The early pieces make me wonder where is the line drawn between art and self-harm? Can a form of self harm even be considered art or is bodily harm only a maladaptive coping mechanism? As both an artist and a former Crisis Counselor, this is a difficult question to grapple. As an artist I cannot deny her expression nor can I speak whether her performance art that involved harm to herself was out of a place of pain or not. As a former Crisis Counselor I do not condone the use of bodily harm in art. I don't think it is a healthy way to express yourself. I believe art can be incredibly powerful and healing even if it does come from a place of pain. There are many other ways that one can express themselves without causing harm to themselves physically including acting, painting, drawing, performing music, dance, voice over, writing and many more. Even performance art can be constructively done in a healthy way. A better alternative to what Abravomic did is to draw on yourself.
Abravomic's last piece showcased is different and actually evokes a healing quality. Over and over again she talked about how performance is a state of mind. She even had a workshop where she prepared performance artists who assisted with her other re-enactments of her pieces. She had them remove themselves from technology, fast and meditate. In her most notable piece she sat on a chair staring at individuals across a table in another chair. Later the table is removed. She is staring at everyday people; the viewers become part of her performance. Her piece was held all day for a few months, people flew in from all over to view her performance. During her last performance the camera paned over to her gaze which remained sharp during the entire duration. I felt an uneasy with her gaze even through the film. Many of her viewers started crying perhaps because of being seen in this way. It is intimacy at the next level. Many people in her life interviewed stated that she doesn't love one person per say but she loves everyone and the Earth. She as a person does not appear on the surface level to exude warmth, she seems to have a very strong exterior which I believe was formed in part from her childhood - she said that her mother never hugged her because she did not want to "spoil" her and her mother trained her in what Abravomic called a militaristic fashion. I think those beginnings as well as her own self determination and self discipline allowed her to keep composure throughout her pieces and continue her artistic career. While I have criticism for her earlier pieces I have admiration for her latter work.
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